7 Rare Signs You're Highly Respected By Everyone Around You
The way you carry yourself makes others hold you in high regard.
Creative Sparks / Shutterstock Living a life where people highly respect you is amazing. Your life literally gets easier, after all.
Most people like to be thorns in others' lives and bring them down. But when people respect you, they not only stop posing as obstacles but start actively trying to help you achieve greatness.
If you don’t observe these signs in your life, don’t be saddened. Instead, take it as feedback and learn the tools for commanding respect.
Here are 7 signs you’re highly respected by the people around you
1. You find others to be very helpful
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There are some people whose general opinion is that the world is incredibly selfish and would not generally describe those around them as helpful. On the other hand, the world seems quite helpful to people who command high respect.
This is not just due to a difference in perspective, but because of people who command respect and people who don’t experience the world differently. Even the most selfish individuals might be inclined to help people who are highly respected.
So, if you feel the world is very helpful to your needs, it’s a sign that others give you respect.
2. You have respect (not pride) for yourself
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There are three kinds of people in this world.
The first kind of people are good, but don’t feel good about themselves. They lack self-awareness, don’t exude a lot of confidence, and don’t receive respect from others because of it.
Then, there are people who aren’t good at something, but act like they are. These people are delusional narcissists, and nothing makes people lose more respect for you than narcissism.
Finally, there are people who are good at something, and feel good about themselves. Such people are in sync and are respected by others.
You've likely heard that people treat you the way you treat yourself. If you treat yourself well, they will too. So, if you have high respect for yourself, it’s a sign that others do as well.
3. People trust you to find resolutions
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Whether it's conflicts at work or even in your personal life, you're the fire brigade, there to put out other people’s fires.
Now, these individuals may have different confidantes. They may confide in other people, divulging their deepest secrets. But unlike those confidantes, you are the person others run to for solutions that actually stick.
While it's both a blessing and a curse, if everyone seeks advice from you, and they actually listen, it’s a sign that you are highly respected.
4. You're humble, even though you have every reason to be arrogant
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People who are merely nice but not really great at anything else don’t induce a lot of respect. In fact, just being nice without actually being great at something in life is quite counterintuitive.
It’s like you’re trying to overcompensate for your lack of competence by being overly nice. People can see through it. In such a case, even your niceness is not appreciated as it should be. Because people know that you have no other choice than to be nice.
On the other hand, people who do incredibly well in life are nice and humble, but they command incredible respect. It’s because they have something to be arrogant about. And yet, they make an active effort to stay humble.
People can sense this, and their response is to respect you.
5. People give your decisions the benefit of the doubt
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People’s decisions are often on display socially and they’re judged by others. When they make sense to others, they’ll understand it.
However, if your decisions don’t make sense to others, people might respond in two ways.
If you don’t command a lot of respect, they might ridicule your decision. However, if you do command respect: they might say something like, "Well, I don’t know why John did that. It doesn’t make sense to me. But it’s John; I’m sure he must have thought it through."
When people respect you, not only do they make peace with your seemingly nonsensical decisions, but they feel the need to understand why you did something because they feel there’s something to learn there.
6. People genuinely compliment you
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Complimenting others doesn’t come naturally to most because everyone has an ego. And their central goal in life is to feel good about themselves, not make others feel good.
This is why judgment and not appreciation is the prevalent route for many people. When you judge and ridicule someone, you subconsciously tell yourself, "You’re better."
Judgment is natural to us, but complimenting others is not. So if people around you repeatedly compliment your competence, it’s a huge sign that they actually respect you.
7. Your competition seeks advice from you
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We all work in competitive environments. Children compete for the top of the class. Employees compete for a promotion. Even some friend groups have a little bit of rivalry.
The general tendency for anyone in such environments is to appear strong and better than their competition. People are biased to not seek advice from the very people they’re competing with.
However, a sign that you’re highly respected is when someone you’re competing with actually seeks advice from you. They have admitted to themselves that you know some things they don’t, and they don’t fear appearing weak by seeking advice from you.
They respect you and want to learn from you.
Akshad Singi, M.D. is a writer whose work has been published in Better Humans, Mind Cafe, Medium, and more.